Laces, including any types of cord or string, are widely used to secure and fasten a wide variety of articles such as footwear, clothing, bags, and the like. Laces are used to adjustably secure footwear on one's foot, generally via a bow or “butterfly” knot. Laces are also often used as a drawstring to tighten articles of clothing and bags, for example, at the waist of a jacket, a pair of pants, the opening of a hood, or a tent bag, etc., by fastening or tying the ends of the laces together to hold the articles of clothing or bags in place.
However, keeping laces tight and tied is a troublesome and time-consuming process. It is often difficult to achieve proper tension of the tied laces. For example, in order to tie a bow or “butterfly” knot, a person who is tying the knot needs to briefly relax the tension on the laces before pulling them tight to tie the knot. This brief relaxing of the laces' tension provides an opportunity for the laces to loosen up or slip before the knot tying is complete. Also, small children are often unable to properly tie a “butterfly” knot or tie such a knot with sufficient force to prevent it from untying. Similarly, adults who participate in athletic games and events are often interrupted because they need to stop and re-tie or tighten the laces on their shoes. Additionally, laces or drawstrings used on clothing and bags, even tied in a knot, often become loosened and need to be retightened.
Furthermore, when laces are tied in a knot, the action of loosening and tightening the laces is problematic. In order to adjust the tightness of the tied laces, the tied knot needs to be first untied and then retied to achieve the desired tightness, an action that is quite time consuming and inconvenient.
Many devices have been designed to help prevent the loosening and/or untying of laces on footwear. For example: Osterholt, U.S. Pat. No. 1,531,410, discloses diagonally disposed and angled vertical openings on a device to receive the terminal ends of a shoe lace to be tied into a bow; Hahn, U.S. Pat. No. 1,806,162, discloses a device having clamping slits which are narrower than the thickness of the lace and opening at an angle for leading the lace ends; Torelli, U.S. Pat. No. 2,650,399, and Burton, U.S. Pat. No. 4,290,172, use holes on a device that allows a bow knot to be tied; Epstein, U.S. Pat. No. 3,066,370, is similar and suggests multiple holes; Bennett, U.S. Pat. No. 3,500,508, and Lofy, U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,482, use complex tying arrangements and devices to avoid loosening of laces; Walls, U.S. Pat. No. 4,879,787, discloses a device that is used for locking bow knots in place; Curry, U.S. Pat. No. 5,119,539, shows disk-form fasteners having spaced-apart holes with cuts or slots connecting with the holes for capturing the lace ends, avoiding the need then to tie the lace ends with any knot; and Hicks, U.S. Pat. No. 5,979,028, discloses a clip through which the lace ends are threaded and clamped.
The aforementioned inventions mostly involve devices that secure and tighten laces for footwear. These devices require complex looping and arrangements of laces and generally do not allow the tension of the laces to be easily adjusted. Also, most of the aforementioned devices require the tying of a conventional bow or “butterfly” knot to secure the lace on the articles. Furthermore, these devices generally are limited to the tightening of laces on footwear only.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a simple device that secures and adjusts laces not only for footwear, but also for other applications, such as clothing and bags. It would also be desirable to provide a device that would allow laces to be easily secured and tightened without any complex lace looping or arrangements and the need for the tying of a bow or “butterfly” knot to secure the lace, while allowing the device to provide a fast and easy way to adjust the tension of any tied laces.